The Estuarine Framework

The Estuarine Framework is the third major framework in the Cynefin ecosystem, developed by Dave Snowden. It provides a model for understanding the forces that shape an organization — constraints, constructors, and actors — and for identifying where small interventions can shift the system.

Estuarine Mapping is the facilitation method used to apply the framework. In a structured workshop, participants identify the forces at play, place them on an energy/time grid, and design interventions. The map is the output. The framework is the thinking behind it.

The Estuarine Framework complements AME3’s Empirical Control and Evolution Focus doctrines. Where Wardley Mapping reveals the competitive landscape and direction of evolution, the Estuarine Framework reveals the internal and external forces that enable or resist change. Combined, they give an Enterprise both a strategic compass and a constraint map.

The Estuary Metaphor

An estuary is where river meets sea. The water flows in and flows out. Some elements are stable like a granite cliff, checked rarely. Others, like sandbanks, shift daily. As the tide turns, some elements become visible or disappear entirely.

This metaphor captures how organizations actually work: multiple flows of possibility, not a single linear path. Some things you can only change at the right moment. Some forces are visible, others hidden. And the landscape shifts constantly.

Four Types of Estuaries — Four Types of Organizations

Geologists classify estuaries into four types based on how they formed. Each type maps to a recognizable organizational pattern:

Understanding which type of estuary your organization resembles helps you choose where to focus your mapping. A coastal plain organization has different constraints than a fjord. A bar-built organization will respond to different interventions than a tectonic one.

Core Concepts

The Estuarine Framework works with three types of actants — the forces that shape a system.

Constraints

Constraints shape systems and affect patterns. They are not merely barriers. A constraint can enable, govern, connect, or contain.

Constructors

Constructors produce consistent, replicable transformations. They change things that pass through them. A hiring process, an onboarding program, or a deployment pipeline are constructors. They transform through:

• Passage — things change by moving through the constructor
• Contagion — things change by proximity to the constructor
• Presence — things change simply because the constructor exists

Actors

Actors are individuals, roles, collectives, or entities with intelligence and intention. They are the people and groups who act within and upon the system.

The Energy/Time Grid

During an Estuarine Mapping workshop, all actants are placed on a two-axis grid:

• Energy (vertical): How much effort, resources, or political capital is required to change this actant?
• Time (horizontal): How long would it take to change it?

This creates a landscape where the position of each actant tells you something about where change is feasible and where it is not.

The Two Lines

Two lines are drawn on the grid to separate distinct zones:

The Counter-Factual Line separates the top-right corner from the rest. Everything above this line is, for practical purposes, currently unchangeable. These are the granite cliffs. You work around them, not against them.

The Volatile Line isolates the bottom-left corner — actants that require very little energy and time to change. These are the sandbanks. They can shift quickly, which means both opportunity and risk. Low cost of change does not mean low impact.

Estuarine Mapping: The Seven Steps

The mapping process follows a pre-process step and seven numbered steps. Steps 0–4 build the map. Steps 5–7 turn it into action.

Action Categories

Interventions in Step 5 fall into three categories:

Vector Actions — change the position of actants on the grid:

• Compass Rose: Shift energy or time costs up or down
• Destroy: Eliminate an actant
• Stabilize: Keep an actant where it is

Signal Actions — sense and respond:

• Conditional: Identify links between actants
• Monitor: Observe, especially near boundary lines
• Trigger: Directly change an actant when conditions are met

Communication Actions — create new connections:

• Research: Investigate, sense-make, extend options
• Request: Seek collaboration, outreach, or permission
• Interaction: Change the connections between actants

In Practice: Using GenAI in a Public Sector IT Organization

Katrin leads an internal IT department of 800 people in a German state ministry. Her teams maintain the tax processing systems, citizen portals, and internal infrastructure. For months, she has watched commercial GenAI tools spread through the ministry — department heads using ChatGPT for drafting policy documents, developers experimenting with Copilot on their personal accounts, citizen service teams asking when they will get an AI assistant.

None of this is sanctioned. None of it is governed. And none of it will stop on its own.

Katrin decides that ignoring GenAI is no longer an option, but she also knows that launching a “GenAI Strategy Program” would take eighteen months just to get through procurement. She needs a different approach — one that works with the forces already in motion rather than trying to control them from above. She commissions an Estuarine Mapping workshop.

Recognising the Estuary

The first insight comes before anyone touches a sticky note. The facilitator asks the group: “What kind of estuary are you?”

The answer is obvious. This is a bar-built estuary. Regulation, procurement rules, and the staff council form a barrier that shields the organization from direct market forces. Inside the lagoon, the water is calm. Exchange with the outside is limited. The challenge is not surviving the ocean — it is preventing stagnation.

This framing shifts the conversation. The question is no longer “How do we catch up with the private sector?” It becomes: “What is already flowing inside our lagoon, and where are the openings?”

Surfacing the Actants

Over two hours, the group identifies the forces shaping their system.

Constraints:

• Data protection regulation (DSGVO/GDPR) — governing, rigid
• BSI cloud security requirements — governing
• Procurement rules (Vergaberecht) — governing, rigid
• “We’ve always done it this way” culture — dark constraint
• Staff council co-determination (Personalrat) — governing, but also enabling
• Annual budget cycle — containing, rigid
• Shadow IT with commercial GenAI tools — dark constraint, already happening, uncontrolled
• Cross-department data silos — containing

Constructors:

• Existing DevOps pipeline — transforms through passage
• Internal training academy — transforms through passage
• Innovation lab (small, underfunded) — transforms through presence
• Monthly IT leadership round — transforms through presence

Actors:

• Katrin (CIO/sponsor), IT architects, department heads, staff council, data protection officer, vendor partners, citizen service teams

The dark constraints provoke the most discussion. Shadow IT is not on anyone’s risk register, but everyone in the room knows it is happening. The “we’ve always done it this way” culture is harder to name — it shows up as slow approvals, risk aversion in architecture decisions, and a preference for studying problems over solving them.

Building the Map

The actants go onto the energy/time grid:

Above the counter-factual line: DSGVO, Vergaberecht, and the annual budget cycle. These cannot be changed by this group. They are granite cliffs. All GenAI initiatives must work within these boundaries. Katrin makes this explicit: “We stop talking about changing these. We design around them.”

Inside the volatile zone: The DevOps pipeline, the innovation lab, shadow IT usage, and the IT leadership round. These can change quickly with low effort — but their current state is unstable. Shadow IT in particular is a sandbank: it shifts daily and carries risk. One data breach and the staff council will shut everything down.

Designing Interventions

With the map in front of them, the group moves from analysis to action. Each intervention is small, reversible, and designed to shift specific actants.

Direction of Travel

The interventions combine into three portfolios:

1. Governance & Compliance: Shadow IT wrapper, BSI-compliant hosting research, staff council co-design
2. Capability Building: Training curriculum, innovation lab PoCs, pipeline extension
3. Culture & Adoption: Early adopter pairing, success story sharing, data catalog initiative

Each portfolio runs as a series of small, parallel experiments — not one large transformation program. The IT leadership round reviews progress monthly. The counter-factual line is reassessed quarterly: what was unchangeable six months ago may have shifted.

Katrin leaves the workshop with something she did not have before: not a strategy document, but a shared picture of the forces at play and a set of interventions sized to her actual room for maneuver.

Why This Works with AME3

In AME3 terms, the Estuarine Map feeds into the Tournament. Each portfolio becomes an Ambition or a set of Goals on the Enterprise Backlog. The individual interventions become Improvements that Teams pull during a Match. The monthly review follows the Anticipate, Advance and Assess loop. The constraint map ensures the organization does not waste energy fighting granite cliffs but instead focuses on what can actually move.

The Estuarine Map also enforces Overall Optimization: by making all actants visible across the enterprise, the portfolios can be evaluated against the Enterprise Product as a whole — not just the unit proposing the change.

Connection to AME3

References

• Snowden, D. (2022). Estuarine Mapping (first edition). cynefin.io
• Snowden, D. (2023). Cynefin St David’s Day blog series. cynefin.io
• Snowden, D. (2024). Book chapters on complexity and uncertainty management
• NOAA. Estuaries: Classifying Estuaries by Geology. oceanservice.noaa.gov
• cynefin.io/wiki/Estuarine_framework
• cynefin.io/wiki/Constraints